Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Family of Engineers

I have been a slacker and hadn't updated my blog in 11 months, now i am thinking refreshing this no matter anyone reads it or not :)

Here is a start - this is an article i wrote for my work newsletter circulated every month. i thought i will use this as a start.

For those of you who know me as a HR Consultant, here is a little blurb about me.I am an Electronics Engineer with an MBA in Information Systems. I havebeen working in Human Resources for the past 10 years.Okay, you are now thinking I am just a confused soul. Here is my story.I come from a family of Engineers, my dad a Civil Engineer, he was theChief Engineer when they built the Nehru Stadium where the Commonwealth Games are held and revamped the assembly house inChennai, one of the 4 metropolitan cities in India.

I have two older brothers, an Electronics Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer. With the three Engineers around me andthe significant age difference, all I saw growing up was one brother wrecking everything around the house in the name ofresearch from transistor radios to fridge lights (needless to say he works for the Government Power Research centre)and the other challenging any idea or concept put forward to him (he works for the Government’s Patent Organisationreviewing ideas submitted by individuals or Organisations).

The common discussion on the dinner table would be how the calculation ofthe fluid discharge of hydraulic notch was wrong in the Fluid Dynamics bookby Dr.Bansal and go on to prove it. I don’t remember them talking aboutanything but Engineering concepts or technology (only exception was cricket).My dad would usually borrow one of my books, Robotics or Computersystems if he was flying on a business trip. No he doesn’t sleep or watchmovies in the flight, yes he reads textbooks for pleasure!

With brothers and daughter

Although I did not find any of these as exciting as them, I could not think ofdoing anything but Engineering when I finished my VCE. As I learnt more andmore, as much as I enjoyed programming an 8086/8088 microprocessor, Icould not help thinking that the job opportunities I had were more to do withmachines and not much with people which bothered me. That was when Idecided to pursue a degree in something to do with people.

My family was quite pleased when I married an engineer but was appalledwhen I announced my decision to pursue Business Administration and notEngineering. To their satisfaction I took up dual specialization of InformationSystems along with Human Resources. I absolutely enjoyed the Human part ofit, so I stayed in this area ever since.

At the age of 75, my dad has finally turned around and said he finds Human Resources interesting. Needless to say, hehas been reading my HR books that I left behind at my parents home when I moved to Australia. He is now enrolledinto a Bachelor of Psychology course and has completed his first year of studies successfully. It’s quite funny that hesubmitted his first assignment – a hand written copy with margins drawn with pencil. He is now learning to useMicrosoft Office from my 9 year old nephew (did I mention my nephew wants to be an Engineer when he grows up!).I’m pleased to think I’ve had some influence on my dad as he did on me.